This site may earn affiliate commissions from the links on this page. Terms of use.

Amazon built its business on a simple premise: It was the place to go to buy all your stuff. Today, Amazon offers a wide range of products and services, including its own branded tablets, ebook readers, and video-on-demand solution — but the basic idea of Amazon and the Amazon ecosystem remains the same.

Amazon Prime is meant to be a value-incentive program that encourages people to pay a yearly fee to Amazon in exchange for free two-day shipping, access to the video-on-demand services, and several other perks. It seems, however, that Amazon is testing an experiment in multiple markets (both the UK and US are reportedly affected). Some video games and movies are only available from Amazon if you’re actually a Prime member.

This screenshot was taken on April 22, 2016. Earlier stories from publications like Business Insider also identified a number of video games that were similarly restricted; Amazon has since responded that these games would be taken off the Prime-only list (affected titles included GTA 5, Far Cry Primal, Assassin’s Creed Syndicate, Battlefield Hardline and Rainbow Six Siege). This appears to be an experiment with making Prime content exclusive, but it’s unlikely to sit well with Amazon shoppers who aren’t already Prime members — and it’s not hard to see why.

Offering perks like free shipping and video services when consumers fork over $99 a year is one thing . It’s not much different than any other perk or reward program that companies have experimented with for decades. Instead, imagine going to Walmart, seeing the stack of merchandise you’d come to purchase, and being told “Sorry, those are for Walmart Gold customers only.” Amazon can claim to offer the same product through its third-party resellers, but the entire point of ordering through Amazon is that it’s Amazon — as opposed to Bob’s Discount Video & Vacuums.

It doesn’t make sense for Walmart to tell its customers to go buy at Target, and it doesn’t make much sense for Amazon to tell customers who aren’t using Prime that they have to spend another $99 a year for the privilege of buying something at Amazon. That’s the kind of attitude that would leave me looking for another retailer, whether I liked Amazon or not.

Thus far, Amazon doesn’t seem to get this point. When VideoGamer.com asked the company why it would lock certain games to Prime customers, the company responded with the following:

“One of the many benefits of Amazon Prime is access to exclusive selection on a number of great products. Customers who are not Prime members can sign-up for a 30-day free trial of Amazon Prime, or they can purchase those items from a Marketplace seller.”

Apparently Amazon thinks telling people to buy their products elsewhere or fork over $99 for the privilege is a winning strategy. We’ll see if that holds true.

Tagged In

I had a trapper keeper style binder in my cart one day, the next day I was going to actually purchase it. Amazon had dropped the price $5 (to $20) but said it was for prime customers only. I ended up buying it on ebay. Nowadays I shop on amazon but buy elsewhere.

VirtualMark

Exactly what I was thinking. Another tab would be open in a millisecond and I’d be off to another retailer. Surely they can’t be this stupid? Surely Amazon know how the internet works?

dxun

And that, sir, is why we have Steam.

Altaira_Jade

LOVE Steam. My son and I use that exclusively now for PC games.

cpy

Who doesn’t nowadays?

ELLAS

Steam is actually not bad at all. Though when it 1st came out, the majority of PC gamers were against such a service. Not anymore. Valve doesn’t seem to intrusive with personal data as Facebook is.

Cestarian

It’s kinda bad how valve has a monopoly on digital game distribution with the only real competition being GOG.

But, out of all the monopolies I’ve seen, this is the one that I’ve also seen abused the least (their biggest abuse is charging high for every single game on there, around 20-30%)

Razon

And that is how a free economy works…..if there are enough of you, Amazon will change their policy. If there isn’t, they won’t.

Furthermore, you would probably be back to Amazon, as soon as they were the cheapest on a product you were buying.

Cestarian

Ali Express, yay!

Zunalter

Yea, I could see them offering a price cut to Prime members, but outright restricting a purchase in a “we don’t take kindly to your type around here” sort of way sounds bizarre…

Mahmet Tokarev (Tajik Pride)

Jeff Bezos is a complete sociopath.

Kary

I think it makes sense if and only if there’s a shortage of the product. Why not make your best customers happy? Why risk your best customers starting to go elsewhere?

scottcarmich

Keep in mind you do NOT get the same return policy coverage if you buy from non-Amazon or non-Fulfilled-by-Amazon sellers. Amazon is doing this to ensure non-Kool-Aid-drinking shoppers (the ones who already pay for the Prime privilege) don’t annoy them w/ returns.

Justice League

could you translate for me. respectfully, huh?

scottcarmich

Amazon has shown it HATES returns. There’s been many stories recently of Amazon outright banning even Prime customers for returning stuff, regardless of reason [like item was defective]. (http://www.moneytalksnews.com/will-amazon-cancel-your-account-for-too-many-returns/). Basically, they want to undercut big box retailers, but they don’t want to offer “You have a receipt, you can return it no matter what!” policies.

Justice League

i personally have not experienced this. perhaps they are targeting those who “abuse” the liberal return policy.

I’ve returned plenty of items. Not sure where you get that. And the link you have is a dead link anyhow… But if it was sold by Amazon, I have had no issues. If they are just the front end for the 3rd party, you have to go through the 3rd party. Just like every other web market out there today…

Politics_Nerd

I shop on Amazon but buy elsewhere. Slavemasters.

LanceHarmstrong

Stick it to the man, man.

Gary Astorino

What they should do is sell to non prime at full retail and prime get a 10-20% discount if they want to have the prime membership have some kind of benefit. Makes more sense then saying you can’t buy what we sell without your “Costco” membership especially when you are a dashboard for thousands of retailers who use your service as a collection point for the money only.

ArdvarkMaster

Prime Members get 20% off games pre-ordered before release and, I think, for 2 weeks after release.

Krimhelm

So you’re telling me that by being a faithful subscriber to a certain company, I get benefits?
Wow that’s just unfair! Everyone should get the benefits! /s

scottcarmich

For 5 years I had Prime and as a student, it was a good deal for $40-50. But the second it jumped to $100 for Prime alone? Guess what? I realized it wasn’t such a great deal. Plus, there has been a noticeable and documented downhill slide in regards to Prime shipping/handling and delivery practices.

Skshrews1

They decided, “now is the time to stick it to the customer”…

Morgan

And this folks, is how companies go under. Most people don’t see value in forking an extra $100 per year on top of the price for an item they want or need just to get said product. That’s not value. It’s extortion. Good luck staying afloat with that business model.

Razon

Hmmm…maybe you should look Amazon just a bit deeper before claiming they are about to go under….

Morgan

Now now. Hold on a sec. I never implied they would implode just like that. Perhaps I should have clarified a bit more. This is a stepping-stone to a company going under. Putting up extra paywalls, restrictions, hoops, barriers to entry always backfires. Consumers don’t like being told they gotta buy this and that just to get access to one or more products or services. Slippery slope is all I’m saying.

Razon

Okay, I give you that. But this is how smart company find the true value of a product. Test the limits. This isn’t a world-wide roll-out, Amazon is testing the market for it. It seems like a smart approach.

Furthermore, some people are willing to pay for things that others won’t. Look at amusement parks and how they figure out they could charge for priority access to rides. Not quite an apples to apples comparison, but still charging extra for something that didn’t exist for a long time.

Peter Nguyen

Amazon makes very low profits; this doesn’t sound like a good way to increase profits

Morgan

Fair enough. But still, this won’t go over well with the majority of consumers. Then again, the consumer is a fickle creature and Amazon may just get away with this. (I hope not though)

scottcarmich

Well, to be honest, if they had to report revenue and profits like a normal big box retailer, their stock wouldn’t be nearly as high and they wouldn’t be able to keep doing all these other businesses. Amazon masks its tiny profit margin but padding areas like “infrastructure costs” in order to deflect poor earnings with “We’re investing in our company!” jargon.

Yeah, I somehow doubt the world’s largest cloud-computing company is going to go under from this (even if it did hurt sales, of which there is no evidence yet). You really think Amazon makes all of their revenue from an online storefront?

Morgan

Never said it was their only source of revenue. But it does make up a significant source of revenue.

That is true. The marketplace actually about 60% of their revenue now… It was closer to 85% this time last year. AWS is becoming Amazon’s main source of revenue.

Point is that within Amazon, the marketplace is showing an aging and low profit business model that needs to change up, and Amazon is trying to explore new options.

It’s not extortion, as you melodramatically stated. It’s capitalism. If they don’t see a return on this concept, then they will try something else or cut the marketplace once it’s no longer profitable, simple as that.

Morgan

This is true as well. But to be fair, I do admit that I find Prime to be a valuable offering. (My brother gets the yearly subscription and I order loads of things which I get within the week that these things are ordered.)

But as far as other consumers go. That value may not be there for them. They may not buy enough online to justify that extra cost and quite frankly, I don’t see why they should have to subscribe to the service if what they’re purchasing doesn’t meet whatever arbitrary threshold they themselves have put up. For me, that threshold is $1000 annually.

I completely agree… Which is why there are other vendors on the Amazon marketplace to purchase from as well as other online storefronts like Amazon (albeit not as robust) such as Walmart.com and eBay. The former option takes a significant portion of revenue of a sale from Amazon (they make less money from third-party marketplace sellers) and the latter option takes away all of their revenue from a sale.

Morgan

Yep. But anyone worth his salt won’t shop at eBay or Walmart’s online stores. There’s no real incentive to do so although they are alternatives. When it comes to games and electronics, I prefer Newegg. When it comes to movies and household related merchandise, I prefer Amazon. I refuse to give either eBay or Walmart any significant amount of money.

But in the end, it’s a consumer preference issue and an issue of value. I don’t think Amazon should push this move for those who buy online but not enough to meet their arbitrarily defined threshold for value or those that refuse to buy from other vendors for whatever reason.

I can’t argue there… I tend to avoid eBay and Walmart.com (the brick & mortar store is an unfortunately necessity however), and Newegg is a damn good site, but the point is that there are competitive options available. Amazon wants to increase the extremely poor profit margins for the marketplace, and this move may or may not work out. Depends on how many of people, as you accurately put, find value in the offering.

One issue that I did just realize is potential anti-trust violations: Amazon could arbitrarily institute policies that make it difficult for independent vendors to sell products cheaper than Amazon or Amazon-affiliates (thus pushing independents out of the marketplace). Now that is an unambiguous path that I would hope Amazon does not even consider. However, that scenario is doubtful as they have had plenty of opportunity to do it and so far have not.

Morgan

Hm. You bring a great point about the possible antitrust violations that Amazon could potentially be involved in. It’s great that they haven’t engaged in that sort of behavior and one can hope they never do, but, I won’t put it past them or any other large corporation to do so if given the opportunity.

I guess all we can do is wait and see and vote with our wallets according to how such a move affects us.

Actually, we do tend to use the Walmart Online option frequently due to the free Site to Store option. That saves lots of money and such because we tend to shop at walmart (pharmacy is cheaper then RiteAid/Walgreens). Do we need to shop there? No but why waste time/effort when the nearest big box retailer other then Walmart is 60+ Miles away?

Morgan

Well. To each his/her own. At the end of the day, it’s your money and you should do with it as you please. I seriously would reconsider Amazon though. I’ve found deals that would trounce anything the big box stores have.

Fast_Turtle

In my case, Prime is worth nothing as I haven’t bought anything from Amazon in over 5 years and then to catch an article like this means I’m not likely to buy from them at all if I can’t get the product I’m interested in. They’ve gotten just like ebay and payapll to my thinking.

Fritz

Ever heard of Costco, Sam’s Club, etc? People swarm to it in droves to buy stuff that half the time isn’t any cheaper than a store without membership fees. Face it, we are dumb.

Morgan

Yes I have. Costco and Sam’s Club are fundamentally different though. What they sell is the idea of bulk. That’s a different business model than that of Amazon. The membership fees for these two places are great if – and I mean if – you buy large quantities of food and household necessities, some of which are much cheaper in bulk than in individualized quantities. At the end of the day though, both models rely on economies of scale. To be fair, if you can afford to make good use of your Prime membership, you can mostly likely make good use of a Costco or Sam’s Club membership as well.

Actually, I am not a member but went to the Costco with a friend here, tons of stuff I wouldn’t call bulk at all. Just cheaper. I.E. TVs, AV equipment, Various Medical equipment, etc. Tons of that stuff. I saw bulk at Sams sure, but not nearly as much here at Costco… Some.

disqus_5T2jXBEN10

something in the water in seatle

Fritz

here in Seattle (and probably elsewhere) we call the employees Amazombies because that’s how they walk down the sidewalk. Completely brainwashed and self absorbed, unaware of all others. Fortunately they are easily ID’d by their ever present badges of shame. edit: i’m not talking about the warehouse workers

You are mis-understanding what they are saying. They have their own vendors or if you hit the ‘buy from others’ you can see dozens of vendors they sell for. They tend to put the cheapest one on top which is not always the prime vendor. I just bought something that was a bit cheaper without prime cause I wasn’t paying attention enough. You can still buy from all of those, just not the prime vendor. In actuality, that’s how a ton of Amazon stuff is sold. But certain vendors will be labeled as Prime vendors. That is all they are saying. Anyone can order the item still, it’s just from which specific shipper it’s coming from. Sometimes even cheaper then the ‘prime’ vendors.

Ordering many things every month, only about half of them come FROM Amazon directly. Even though just about all of them are a ‘prime’ shipment for me. I spend enough that the discount for shipping and everything from the heaviest items to the tiniest things all get to me ~ 2 days, sometimes less. And often on Saturday even. The TV stuff is an afterthought my kids use and not why I am a member.

And honestly, their customer service is really hard to beat. They’ve shipped me entire shipments twice a few times due to the tiniest reasons without even questioning. One of them was almost a grand. Another a few hundred. I can’t complain about their service what-so-ever. That and their shipping is what I pay for.

LanceHarmstrong

I think you’re misunderstanding. We’re not talking about prime video & tv here, we’re talking about actual products that Amazon will not take your money for unless you’re prime. They’ll instead direct your purchase to an authorized third party. Sure, they get their cut of that transaction but they lose the bulk of the revenue on that purchase.

This is not a sensible business strategy no matter how you look at it. It’s borderline insane.

NO, I AM talking about products. Every product sold there has a few dozen or more different ‘sellers’ that it comes from. That is EXACTLY what I said above, Nothing to do with TV. I’d suggest you and everyone who upticked you to re-read it for comprehension. I wouldn’t even know how to read that and put in TV for ‘buy from others’… That’s product only.

The only vendors that are in the ‘prime’ system are those who are authorized to ship on Amazon’s billing system for 2-day speed service. I’ve also had items from the same shipper be prime one time then not later on. Same item from the same people. Being as I buy roughly once a week from Amazon, I’ve seen tons of stuff NOT come from their shipping warehouse and even though I am a prime member, not everything I buy is from the prime vendors. Sometimes non-prime prices are just too good. And I have not seen a single example of one of these ‘exclusives’ that are not otherwise available from other very reliable sources (that were probably in the prime network last week and will be next week…).

Krimhelm

Don’t even bother wasting your time with this guy. He’s not even doing his own research and coming up with his own conclusions.

Ahh, gotcha. Thanks. It does amaze me the upvotes he gets though.. do people not read?

shika

It makes sense for high fraud items. Amazon gets a commission off marketplace sales, which is obviously much preferable over losing money due to fraud.

LanceHarmstrong

Do the products mentioned here strike you as high fraud items?? I also don’t agree that this makes sense at all, for any item they list.

They’re a retailer that is saying “sorry, we won’t take your money, but these guys will and we get a small cut”. How does that make sense? They’re losing money on these transactions intentionally. Why?

jack324

Yeah actually, apparently you have never seen a bootlegged copy sold on the street, the same thing happens online. Popular movies and video games are commonly bootlegged.

LanceHarmstrong

Yes it happens, but on a storefront like Amazon it isn’t common enough to warrant such an asinine decision as to turn away potential buyers. Furthermore, Amazon is under no legal obligation to arbitrate between 3rd parties so fraud wouldn’t exactly be a massive problem for them to start with.

Phobos

I like Amazon but if they start doing that crap I’ll spend my money elsewhere, bad enough the damn shipping is high enough.

Justice League

how half assed. imagine walking into walmart and placing a dvd on the counter to be told you can not buy this unless you become a walmart exclusive member. but we will sell you the 12 pack of toilet paper. huh? i’m the kinda pissy consumer that would buy elsewhere even if it was more and inform the other retailer of their revenue loss.

Justice League

either be walmart or be costco. you can’t be both. consumers hate confusion. consumers hate the “exclusive” mindset. prime or no prime, my one dollar bill has the same value.

Deb Servey

I’ve been an Amazon customer since they started up, but this is just a pissy attitude for them to take. It’s my choice NOT to shell out $99 a year just for a few privileges. If they made it $99 for a lifetime membership, maybe I could see it. I’m a Netflix member, so yes, I’m basically paying that service $99 a year just to watch movies and shows, but Amazon is starting to act like some exclusive snobby club that is a redundancy to me!! And I agree with an earlier comment–if Amazon pulls that for Prime members only on me even once, I will take my business elsewhere!!

Harlon Katz

Really, a LIFETIME of free 2-day shipping for $99? I don’t think many are that good of customers of Amazon where they would make it up on volume of purchases.

“…but Amazon is starting to act like some exclusive snobby club that is a redundancy to me!! And I agree with an earlier comment–if Amazon pulls that for Prime members only on me even once, I will take my business elsewhere!!”

The irony here.

Anyway, so you are justifying spending money in one place and not the other based upon your personal perception of the service?

You do know that Netflix prevents you from streaming certain content they have licensed, right?

Harlon Katz

OK, so as part of full disclosure, I do have Prime.

That being said, what is wrong with saving scarce items for your “best’ customers? Others stores do similar things as well. Sam’s club lets certain customers come in earlier, is that “fair”?

Electrify85

There’s a shortage on copies of GTAV?

Harlon Katz

Maybe there was when the instance was documented, if even within their own warehouse. There were waiting to open up sales until more stock was available.

Joel Hruska

GTA V is 2-3 years old at this point depending on your choice of platform. It’s not some rare or unusual title.

Harlon Katz

I also stated that maybe THEY (Amazon) only had a limited number of games in stock, and were keeping them for some reason. Or not, it could just have been an experiment, though I don’t know why it would be done on something that was not in limited supply in some manner.

I’m right with ya, plus as I said above, there is always another way to buy it, just not through a prime vendor. Somehow comprehension by some people seems to slip away. (How in the heck do you get TV out of my above comment?) Anyhow, to take that comment even further, yup, I have no problem with them giving special items to their members first, etc. FROM their prime retailers (of the moment, which changes often anyhow).

To be honest, the whole argument against this whole thing seems pretty weak. If people shop and Amazon then buy somewhere else, that’s no different in so many regards then purchasing from some other vendors accept you lose Amazon entirely in y our support loop and their support is why I shop there, no other reason.

Just can’t please everyone it seems. People want to cry about everything.

Bri

Except you have have absolutely zero evidence that those items were scarce. Amazon is constantly trying to push people into prime, so it isn’t very surprising, but it is certainly shady.

Harlon Katz

You also have no proof that those items were not “scarce” at the warehouse either. The thing is, it would make zero sense to do it for regular items that have little or now demand – kind of like trying to sell sand to people that live in a desert or air conditioners to people living in the arctic. There would be zero “push” to purchase prime in such cases.

More likely it was some test, in a production environment which is a bit strange, of a new feature they may be implementing. It is almost an extension of their existing practice of giving prime members early access to some lightning deals.

Bri

“Onus probandi incumbit ei qui dicit”

The burden of proof is on the person making the claim, not the person questioning the claim.

Harlon Katz

I have not “proof” as I do not work at Amazon, so I guess that would be impossible for anyone to “prove” who did not work there.

That being said, LOGIC states that it would not make any sense to implement such a policy for non-scarce items (with the examples giving in the article maybe being test cases).

Bri

That kind of assumes that all companies act logically. Also they could do it for popular items in order to drive more people over to prime, not just scarce items.

Harlon Katz

Again, why? Even if an item is popular, if it is not scarce, it can be purchased anywhere. It would do Amazon zero good to do so. on the other had, if an item is scarce, it allows Amazon to reward its best customers.

Bri

I already said why.

FireFox Bancroft

…And that’s why I started getting my stuff from Newegg.com

LanceHarmstrong

Newegg really went downhill a few years ago; been buying most of my hardware from Amazon since ’10. Doesn’t help they have a brand new massive distro center 20 minutes from my house… shipping is quick but now I automatically pay state tax on everything. Annoying -.-

That being said, the first time I want something on amazon and can’t buy it because I’m not prime, I’ll never use them again.

FireFox Bancroft

You may want to re-check Newegg.com because the last time i looked they had a lot of great deals on PC Hardware. Not exactly what i’d call going downhill. They seem to be doing fine.

Electrify85

This has to be one of the dumbest moves I have ever seen a business make. You take some of your best selling items, and refuse to sell them?!? Which marketing flunky even came up with that, and who the hell approved it thinking it was a good idea!?!

Are the folks running Amazon so pretentious that they actually believe that this will increase sales, rather than force potential customers to other retailers, including instant downloads? I’m glad I’m not a stockholder, cause I can’t imagine this move will improve their earnings. Hell, it is stuff like this which force CEOs from their positions.

Rawr

For games you’d only need to get it direct from the platform you game with it on. There is no loss of features to that. Same with movies. It only affects those that prefer to have the physical object of the item in question. Even then you still have other retail stores in US/UK that offer the games and movies as well. No loss at all imo.

I almost felt like they were trying to go the PSN/XLIVE route where in order to play multiplayer and/or access discounts, you’d have to be on a subscription.

Spanky Lee

Amazon is the most amazing deal in history. No sales tax and all your purchases and shipping are subsidized by investors who never seem to notice that the company is something of a Ponzi scheme. Eventually the influx of investor money will stop, prices will rise, customers will leave and the whole company will explode like an abscess.

Now that’s not to say that I don’t shop there. No, no baby. Matter of fact I also own stock but I will unload it in 2019.

Ya, I do about half the items, I think it depends also where it ships from or I’d be paying on everything… Still a hard deal to beat.

HookTink Furrble

Nobody but nobody is forcing anyone to buy anything from Amazon. Someone needs to start a place to sell cheese because it goes well with all the whines. It will need a big complaint dept. though. Amazon Prime is a huge win if you actually use Amazon regularly. Do the all math after ya have your whines and cheeses. Thanks Amazon for the best buying experience there is .
W.P.

Stephanie C.

But I’m not going to go to a Marketplace seller. I’m going to go to Best Buy, or Staples, or Target’s online sites.

Red October

They haven’t met a two day deadline yet for me. And its a standard post service, you know, that we get for normal cost everywhere else.

But hey, pay me $98 (full dollar saved already), and you can call me up when your delivery doesn’t turn up, I’ll even say sorry and feel fake bad for you, and then you can go on to email the seller and state your issue yourself and I’ll agree if i think its fair.

What did we pay for again?

Bri

Their prime ship dates have consistently fallen over the years. I think that might be why they are rolling out their own delivery service in order to keep hitting the delivery time and reduce their costs.

Scott

Investors must be putting pressure on Amazon, because they’re ramping up the bullshit. They hide the SD price to buy video. It didn’t clean up the UI (it added more clicks), so the only purpose I can see is to deceive people by hiding the lower-priced option.

The video benefits for prime aren’t as good as before. Some shows I wanted are now “free with ads”, which isn’t free and isn’t something I’ll ever tolerate. And they’re either not scaling servers/bandwidth, or they’re throttling video. Several times videos weren’t playing in HD and they told me I don’t have enough bandwidth. But I can play 4K 60fps videos on youtube just fine, Netflix works fine, so I know my bandwidth isn’t the problem.

They’re also advertising more on their own site, pushing more preferred products and services, and basically harassing you to complete your purchase if you have items sitting in your cart.

I generally like Amazon, but they seem to be doing everything possible to make me hate it.

dc

The next path to growth is a real rewards program like many grocery stores have. Buy X amount of stuff, get a reward. Grocery stores are already going to gas discounts. Amazon should explore a similar consumable. My suggestion is to offer rewards at AmmoWorld. I’m not sure if there are AmmoWorld’s outside of Alaska “yet”, but being in on the ground floor of an expanding business model makes it all the more worth while.

Scott

As I started reading your post I was thinking “no, not another damn rewards program”. But then I got to the part about the rewards being at AmmoWorld, and now I’m warming up to the idea.

dc

Buy some groceries, refill a mag (or cylinder) for free. What’s not to like?

Kyle

It isn’t unheard of to charge a yearly fee to buy products from a company. Sam’s Club, Costco, BJ’s, etc, all use that same idea. Honestly, if Amazon only did this for bulk purchases, I wouldn’t be concerned.

The weird thing is that the way Amazon is conducting it is comparable to a F2P MMO. You can play for free, but if you want to be able to get X loot drop, you’ll need to have at least $100 in cash shop tokens which you have to rebuy every so often.

Altaira_Jade

Dropped Prime 2 years ago and not going back. The movie selections were mediocre at best and I don’t need stuff sent in 2 days. I plan better or do without for a few days. Giant rip off for a company that pays it’s employees poorly and works them like they were machines. Then has workers wait in long lines w/o pay to be screened for stolen merchandise. As soon as machines can do the pick/sort jobs, I’m betting Amazon will replace all it’s human workers.

Not a company I want to support anymore.

Bri

That SCOTUS ruling really was appalling.

Austin B

I’ve also noticed that it seems that Amazon is purposely not shipping items as fast as they used to for non-prime members.

Tim Trischuk

I had a Star Wars blu-ray in my cart one day, then the next it was a prime exclusive and I couldn’t buy it. I often put pre-purchase DVDs or Blu-rays in my cart for a few days, but after this stunt I’ll never buy another movie from these idiots. The experiment just cost them my media business forever.

Harlon Katz

Well, if enough people do it, then maybe they will change. If, on the other hand, they increase sales of Prime membership, and of sales in general, then you and those others will not be missed.

People SHOULD speak with their dollars and purchase from vendors that they support and stop purchasing from vendors that they don’t.

Krimhelm

I love it when people can’t into research and would just parrot what a reddit post says. Amazing.

Joel Hruska

See, it’s funny you say that.

1). I never linked or read a reddit post about this.
2). I did check, independently, to confirm that certain items mentioned were restricted to Prime members only.

The one thing I missed is that apparently Amazon has been doing this for awhile. I just haven’t come across it until now.

Bri

I love it when people assume…

Daniel Revas

This doesn’t seem like the brightest move. I’m curious as to what makes Amazon think that people won’t just look elsewhere for everything? Amazon has been convenient for certain purchases, but they aren’t the end all, be all they seem to think they are.

DarthCourteous

Does the free shipping not cost Amazon anything? I guess I thought they’d be better off if everyone wasn’t an Amazon Prime member because I pretty much buy everything from Amazon now to make sure I get my $99 dollars and then some in free shipping every year. I mean that’s probably kinda the point, but hopefully I’m like a fat guy who guys to a buffet to see just how much “all he can eat” really is

ArdvarkMaster

I like how the screen shot cut out the “Buy from others” option on this Blu-Ray. I looked up this particular Blu-Ray and it has several others selling it, some even offering Prime shipping.

Me personally, I usually don’t pay attention to who it is shipping FROM, whether it is Amazon or a third party. I use Prime because, for me living out in the sticks, it is convenient.

For the Birdman Blu-Ray, there are 52 different vendors selling the BluRay (NEW)(as of this post). Only one is actually Amazon. About half offer Prime shipping. There are five that are cheaper than Amazon, all offering Prime shipping. And all say they are ‘Fufilled by Amazon” (I think that means the third party merchant stores their items in an Amazon warehouse). Anyone who shops on Amazon could get this particular Blu-Ray, easily.

Joel Hruska

Ard,

I checked the original file (still had it open in Paint.Net.). I cropped the image only slightly and did not remove a “Buy from Others.”

THAT was the point I was trying to make. It changes so often it’s really moot anyhow. And I’ve seen prime vendors one week non prime the next… And some of their ‘3rd party’ vendors are prime next week. It’s such a wash. I find it interesting a few bookmarks I use the price changes a bit and the vendor is prime this week, not the next. So I have to check which vendor it is coming from which time, etc.

I’m all for prime members having some ‘bonuses’ but honestly we don’t even see them like that unless we’re looking without being logged in.

ArdvarkMaster

Thanks for the reply.

I went to the Business Insider link included in the article. Their image clearly shows a “More Buying Choices” directly below, what I assume was their addition, a large red outline highlighting “Exclusively for Prime Members”. Even looking at the image Business Insiders provided for GTAV, their is a link visible for “173 new from $39.88” in their image. In any event, their images showed an option available for non-Prime members, albeit maybe not that clear as one would want.

So, my question is, what does happen if you are a non-Prime member and you click on it to buy it? Does it refer you to one of the other vendors available? Does it try to sell you Prime? What happens? Neither article mentioned it (but I might have missed that). If it drops you to a different vendor, then it really is a moot point. If it is something else, that may be a different story. Did anyone try to buy it as a non-Prime user?

Jose Salce

If Amazon was trying making some content Prime exclusive, that was a really bad implementation that was not thought-out. At least, I would have hide the items to regular shoppers and have the items listed only if a customer had a Prime membership.
That way it doesn’t look like well you don’t have Prime then you don’t get this.

Michael Parish

I have found many other items not listed in the article also not available to me since I dropped Prime. But what really bothers me is that even the items I can buy aren’t shipped anywhere near as fast as when I was a Prime member. Most items will take 5 to 7 days to ship and then another 4 or 5 days to reach me. As a result I now purchase fewer items from Amazon and go to other on-line sources. I was being lazy and buying everything from Amazon and never checking prices at other sources. I’ve now discovered that I was overpaying for many items. Those from 3rd party sources added shipping on top of the shipping already included in the Amazon price.

John Cressman

At some point, celebrities, sports stars and… apparently… even companies go bat-sh*t crazy because they surround themselves with sycophants who tell let them know that what they are saying or doing is completely mental.

Great deal for $50 a year. Abhorrent deal for $100. This will only benefit the competition.

ramonzarat

I already hate the oligarch Jeff Bezos fro his oligarchness… Using his toy, the Washington post, as a political propaganda outlet was already bad as it is…

Mahmet Tokarev (Tajik Pride)

This is a really crappy way of abusing market power. The idea is to get everyone paying for Prime so they’re locked into using ONLY Amazon. If you ever shop anywhere else you’re losing money because you’ve already been pushed into pre-paying for shipping.

Thrawn05

Still not going to buy Prime.

This site may earn affiliate commissions from the links on this page. Terms of use.

ExtremeTech Newsletter

Subscribe Today to get the latest ExtremeTech news delivered right to your inbox.